Seiðr

In Old Norse, (sometimes anglicized as seidhr, seidh, seidr, seithr, seith, or seid) was a type of magic practiced in Norse society during the Late Scandinavian Iron Age. The practice of is believed to be a form of magic which is related to both the telling and the shaping of the future. Connected to the Old Norse religion, its origins are largely unknown, and its practice gradually declined after the Christianization of Scandinavia. Accounts of later made it into sagas and other literary sources, while further evidence of it has been unearthed by archaeologists. Various scholars have debated the nature of , some of them have argued that it was shamanic in context, involving visionary journeys by its practitioners. practitioners were of both sexes, with sorceresses being variously known as , and . There were also accounts of male practitioners, who were known as (or in the singular). In many cases these magical practitioners would have had assistants to aid them in their rituals. In pre-Christian Norse mythology, was associated with both the god Óðinn, a deity who was simultaneously responsible for war, poetry and sorcery, and the goddess Freyja, a member of the Vanir who was believed to have taught the practice to the Æsir. In the 20th century, adherents of various modern Pagan new religious movements adopted forms of magico-religious practice which include .…

In Old Norse, (sometimes anglicized as seidhr, seidh, seidr, seithr, seith, or seid) was a type of magic practiced in Norse society during the Late Scandinavian Iron Age. The practice of is believed to be a form of magic which is related to both the telling and the shaping of the future. Connected to the Old Norse religion, its origins are largely unknown, and its practice gradually declined after the Christianization of Scandinavia. Accounts of later made it into sagas and other literary sources, while further evidence of it has been unearthed by archaeologists. Various scholars have debated the nature of , some of them have argued that it was shamanic in context, involving visionary journeys by its practitioners. practitioners were of both sexes, with sorceresses being variously known as , and . There were also accounts of male practitioners, who were known as (or in the singular). In many cases these magical practitioners would have had assistants to aid them in their rituals. In pre-Christian Norse mythology, was associated with both the god Óðinn, a deity who was simultaneously responsible for war, poetry and sorcery, and the goddess Freyja, a member of the Vanir who was believed to have taught the practice to the Æsir. In the 20th century, adherents of various modern Pagan new religious movements adopted forms of magico-religious practice which include . The practices of these contemporary -workers have since been investigated by various academic researchers who are operating in the field of pagan studies. ==Terminology and etymology== is believed to come from Proto-Germanic * , cognate with Lithuanian , 'tie, tether' and Proto-Celtic * 'sorcery' (giving Welsh , Breton 'magic'), all derived from Proto-Indo-European * 'string, rope', ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root * 'to bind'. Related words in Old High German (see German Saite, used both in string instruments and in bows) and Old English refer to 'cord, string', or 'snare, cord, halter' and there is a line in verse 15 of the skaldic poem Ragnarsdrápa that uses in that sense. However, it is not clear how this derivation relates to the practice of . It has been suggested that the use of a cord in attraction may be related to , where attraction is one element of the practice of magic described in Norse literature and with witchcraft in Scandinavian folklore. However, if involved "spinning charms", that would explain the distaff, a tool used in spinning flax or sometimes wool, that appears to be associated with practice. In any case, the string relates to the "threads of fate", that the Nornir spin, measure, and cut. Old English terms cognate with are (as a suffix in the noun ælfsiden, in various inflected forms) and , both of which are attested only in contexts that suggest that they were used by elves ( ); these seem likely to have meant something similar to . Among the Old English words for practitioners of magic are (m.) or (f.), the etymons of Modern English 'witch'. ==Old Norse literature== has a curse regarding a ' ' or ' worker'.]] ===Sagas=== ====Erik the Red==== In the 13th century Saga of Erik the Red, there was a or in Greenland named Þórbjǫrg ('protected by Thor'). She wore a blue cloak and a headpiece of black lamb trimmed with white ermine, carried the symbolic distaff ( ), which was buried with her, and would sit on a high platform. As related in the saga: ====Other sagas==== As described by Snorri Sturluson in his Ynglinga saga, includes both divination and manipulative magic. It seems likely that the divination of -practitioners was distinct, in a metaphysical nature, from the day-to-day auguries performed by the seers ( , ). However, in chapter 44 of the Icelandic saga Vatnsdæla saga, Þórdís Spákona loans someone her black cloak and stick ( ) for magic. The stick is used to strike a man three times on his left cheek to make him forget and three times on his right cheek to make him remember. ===Folktales=== Seiðr is mentioned in Icelandic folktales dating to the 19th century (Íslenzkar Þjóðsögur og Æfintýri, Jón Árnason). ==Practices== involved the incantation of spells (galdrar, sg. ). Practitioners may have been religious leaders of the Viking community and usually required the help of other practitioners to invoke their deities, gods, or spirits. As they are described in a number of other Scandinavian sagas, Saga of Erik the Red in particular, the practitioners connected with the spiritual realm through chanting and prayer. Viking texts suggest that the ritual was used in times of inherent crisis, as a tool for seeing into the future, and for cursing and hexing one's enemies. Overall, Seiðr could have been used for great good or destructive evil, as well as for daily guidance. One author, Neil Price, argues that it was very likely that some parts of the practice involved sexual acts, given that ritual staves have phallic epithets in various Icelandic sagas. Price also argues that, because of its connection with ergi, was "undoubtedly located on one of society's moral and psychological borders." ==Mythology== ==Origins== Since the publication of Jacob Grimm's socio-linguistical Deutsches Wörterbuch (p. 638) in 1835, scholarship draws a Balto-Finnic link to , citing the depiction of its practitioners as such in the sagas and elsewhere, and linking to the practices of the noaidi, the patrilineal shamans of the Sami people. However, Indo-European origins are also possible. Note that the Finnish word and the Sami variants of the term refer to a human-shaped tree or a large and strangely-shaped stone or rock and do not necessarily reference magical power. There is a good case, however, that these words do derive ultimately from . ==Contemporary paganism== Contemporary paganism, also referred to as neopaganism, is an umbrella term used to identify a wide variety of new religious movements, particularly those influenced by the various pagan beliefs of premodern Europe. Several of these contemporary pagan religions draw specifically on the original medieval religious beliefs and practices of Anglo-Saxon England as sources of inspiration, adopting such Anglo-Saxon deities as their own. is interpreted differently by different groups and practitioners, but usually taken to indicate altered consciousness or even total loss of physical control. Diana L. Paxson and her group Hrafnar have attempted reconstructions of (particularly the oracular form) from historical material. Author Jan Fries regards as a form of "shamanic trembling", which he relates to "seething", used as a shamanic technique, the idea being his own and developed through experimentation. According to Blain, is an intrinsic part of spiritual practice connecting practitioners to the wider cosmology in British Germanic neopaganism. ==References== ===Citations=== ===Works cited=== Ch. 6. ==Further reading==

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